Forty-five years ago this evening Nina and I were married at the New Haven Branch of the LDS Church in New Haven, Connecticut. We had met on a blind date about eight months earlier and within a couple weeks we began talking about getting married. I don’t think I ever formally proposed, but by Christmas time we were busy making plans.

I was going to the Air Force’s Chinese Language School at Yale University in New Haven. I reported there in late September, 1963 and met Nina in late October. The school finished at the end of the first week in June and I had to report for further training at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas on June 22nd. Nina was a senior at Hambden High School and her last class was on June 12th.

We were married by the Branch President on Friday, June 12, 1964. We had a small wedding reception at the Branch Meeting House and Nina and I spent the night at a nearby very nice motel (we watched Jack Parr on TV that evening). The next morning we left with my mother and my Aunt June to go to San Angelo.

We drove through Washington, D.C. (it was an incredibly hot day), then on to Texas with a couple of stops along the way at night. One evening we stayed in a motel in Tennessee that had a number of  log cabins for their rooms.

Mother and Aunt June helped us find an apartment in San Angelo, and then they left to go back home (mother to Soda Springs, and Aunt June to Tooele, Utah).

Our first apartment cost $35 a month and was located in downtown San Angelo above a dry cleaning establishment. It was a two-room apartment and we were very excited to set up housekeeping.

It’s been a good 45 years since then. We have been blessed with wonderful children and they’ve found outstanding spouses. Life has been very, very good. I definitely “married up” and have never had second thoughts. Happy anniversary, Nina, light of my life!